A mother on the brink sent out a desperate email last night saying that she couldn’t bear to go on living before she allegedly shot dead her three young daughters and herself in the head at her estranged boyfriend’s house, police said.

Lisa Cochran, a 32-year-old mother living in rural De Soto, Missouri, sent out an email last night saying goodbye, leading Jefferson County police to believe that the four deaths were a murder-suicide.

Police said that her estranged boyfriend, Christopher Ehlen, discovered Cochran’s van parked outside his house late last night, and immediately alerted authorities.

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Grim task: Authorities investigate the horrific murder scene as they load one of the bodies onto a truck; a mother and her three young daughters were found dead early on Thursday morning

Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer told MailOnline that deputies were contacted by Ehlen, the estranged boyfriend, around 12:30am this morning at his home near De Soto, about 45 miles south of St. Louis.

He told police officers that he saw his ex-girlfriend’s van in the driveway, but she had filed an ex parte order on him.

Sheriff Boyer said: ‘He didn’t want to violate the order, so he left, and called the police.’

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An officer at the scene was about to make a grisly discovery. The sheriff continued: ‘(An) officer approached the van, expecting to contact his estranged girlfriend.

'A short distance from the van, found the deceased body of the mother of the three children. All had been shot in the head with a shotgun.’

Lisa Cochran was found a short distance away on the porch, with a bullet wound to the head.

According to the sheriff, the girls have been identified as 22-month-old Faith Ehlen, the daughter of Christopher Ehlen, 10-year-old Autumn Cochran, and 11-year-old Alyssa Cochran.

The sheriff called it one of the worst crimes he's seen nearly four decades of working in law enforcement.

House of horror: The house belongs to Christopher Ehlen, the estranged boyfriend of Lisa Cochran

Horrific: The local sheriff said this was one of the worse crime scenes he's come across in nearly four decades of working in law inforcement

The father of the two elder girls has also been notified by authorities, he told MailOnline. He and Cochran had divorced.

Sheriff Boyer said that based on the email they recovered today that was sent at 8pm last night, they believe the deaths are a murder-suicide.

‘The email begins by saying goodbye, and makes several reference of not being able to go on any longer,’ he said.

At one point, Cochran wrote: ‘I can’t go on like this.’

Officers recovered the shot gun from the porch where they found Cochran, and later said that the young mother had purchased it on August 29 from a Wal-Mart in Arnold.

He said that the shotgun appeared to be new, and still had some of its stickers on it, he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The sheriff added: ‘We’re at the very beginning stages of the investigation. I’m not going to release a whole lot.’

An aerial shot captured by KMOV shows officials wheeling a person in a body bag into an emergency vehicle.

For confidential support call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or visit www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org. In the U.K., call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90 or to visit a local Samaritans branch, see www.samaritans.org for details.